Without Ties
by fierydivergence
Summary: What if Hazel Grace Lancaster was an ordinary girl? Friendless (basically), intelligent, loved to read, and the subject of the new kids eye? And the 'new kid' happened to be the gorgeous Augustus Waters? My take on what would have happened if neither of our star crossed lovers had the crippling cancer that tore them apart. Oneshot.
1. Chapter 1

Hello everyone! This is my first story, so any comments you have are greatly appreciated!

When I walked into English class on Wednesday afternoon, I was prepared for all consuming boredom. I love the topic of English class, but our teacher sucks. Mr. Gray always tells the same story about how his grandfather had cancer and had to have his balls cut off so in turn he cut his off too in honor of him. It's gross and furthermore he has retold the story so many times I could probably tell it. But, today, well, there was already someone sitting in the theirs seat of the second row of desks. This someone happened to be a boy, an- okay I'll say it, he was a hot boy. And he was staring at me, from the moment I walked into the classroom. Lucky for me, my assigned seat was right next to where he was. I smiled lightly as I slid into my seat. The boy smiled back as I set my textbook down on the table. After a few minutes of awkward silence, our teacher (yes, the ball-less one) called for attention. "Alright class! As some of you may have noticed, we have a new student today. why don't you come up and introduce yourself?" The boy stood up and walked to the front of the room. Everyone in class was sitting up straight, this was a moment that could make or break a kids reputation at a school like this. And then he spoke.

"My name is Augustus Waters," he said. His voice was low, smoky, and dead sexy. "I'm seventeen years old and I'm a junior, hence my enrollment in this class." he smirked a little at the end, and I noticed he was still staring at me. That was when it occurred to me why they call it eye _contact_.

"Does anyone have any questions for Mr. Waters?" Mr. Gray asked. A hand shot up at the back of the class. The same question was asked, "What are you afraid of?" Augustus didn't pause before answering, "Oblivion," while smirking. Mr. Gray must have thought this was a good time to turn into a class discussion rather than interrogation and said, "Would, uh, anyone like to speak on that?"

Now, let me clarify for you. I was not an outstanding overall student. My parents were my two best friends, besides an author who didn't technically exist. I was not the hand raising type. But just this once, I decided to break my own rules. I half raised my hand, and Mr. Gray, in obvious shock that I was about to speak, stuttered out a "Go ahead Hazel," and go ahead I did.

"There will come a time," I said, looking Augustus Waters straight in the eye. "When all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this," I gestured around the classroom encompassingly- "will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe its millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun we will not survive forever. There was a time before organisms experienced consciousness and there will be a time after. And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. God knows thats what everyone else does."

After I finished there was quite a long period of silence as I watched a smile spread all the way across his face-not the crooked smile of a boy trying to be sexy while he stared at me, but his real smile, too big for his face. "Goddamn," Augustus said quietly. "Aren't you something else."

It was an agonizing fifty minutes until the bell rang for the end of school. I swung by my locker and unloaded all my books onto the too-small shelf (I had done all my homework in class) and walked the hallways to the front doors. I pushed them open and hurried my way to a more secluded spot a hundred or so yards away from the main doors of the school to wait for my mom to drop me off. I nearly jumped ten feet in the air when I felt someone tap my shoulder. Turning around, I discovered the new kid, Augustus Waters standing behind me. "Hi," I said. "HI" he said. The awkward silence that followed made me want to fidget. Augustus Waters was the one to break it. "Let's go watch a movie. Today. At my house," he said, smirking. I laughed.

"You could be an ax murderer!"

"There's always that possibility," he replied jokingly, pulling a cardboard box out of his pocket. "Especially since, as you so deliciously pointed out, we're all going to die soon anyway so I thought might as well take a chance," He pulled a thin cigarette out of the box and stuck it between his lips. "Ohmygod," I muttered. Then louder, "Oh my God. Are you kidding me? Do you think that's cool or something? You just ruined this whole thing."

"The whole thing?" Augustus inquires, seeming amused.

"And you were doing really well too," I said turning away from him. He catches my wrist.

"Hazel, I've never lit one."

"Excuse me?"

"I've never lit one. It's a metaphor you see. You put the killing thing in between your teeth, but you never give it the power to do it's killing."

"A metaphor. " Well alright then, sure let's take the new kids word for i and go to his house where he would have very advantage over you. When my mom's car pulled up, I went up to the passenger seat window and knocked twice. My mom rolled it down and I took a deep breath before telling her, "I'm going to a movie with Augustus Waters. Please search him on Facebook to confirm he is not an ax murder." I could _feel _Augustus smirking behind me, so I turned around to find that sexy smirk on his face. Shaking my head at him, I waved goodbye to my mom before following him to his car.


	2. Chapter 2

Augustus Waters drove horrifically. From the second he hit the gas pedal it was a lot stopping and starting and the screeching of tires. Augustus was smiling the whole time, looking a lot like he was enjoying giving me a heart attack every time a stoplight turned green. Eventually I called it quits, asking augustus to pull over. "What/s wrong? Are you okay?" he asked, his brows furrowing in concern. I replied, "Get out of the car." He didn't question me, merely got out and came over to my side of the car. I slid over the emergency brake and plopped down into his seat. He raised an eyebrow and got into the passenger seat. Turning the keys in the ignition, I put the car in drive and merged back into traffic. "So did you even pass your driver's test?" I said after a few awkward minutes of silence and Augustus smirking.

"Technically, yes," he said.

"Technically? That doesn't sound promising," I teased lightly.

"Well, see, the first three times I took the test, I passed the written exam with flying colors. The second I got in the car though, it all just went downhill."

"Oh _three _times. Okay."

"Yeah. So the fourth time I go in, I take the written exam, and then I go outside, and this really hot female instructor is sitting there," my eyebrows rose, effectively cutting him off. "Not like that. Anyway, she was hitting on me the whole time, and when we got back to the testing center she said 'your driving, while not enjoyable, is not technically unsafe.'"

"Again with the technicalities!" I laughed, glancing at him. Big mistake. In the second I glanced over, the light turned green and cars everywhere honked their horns. In a panic, I slammed the gas pedal and we barreled down the street. Augustus was hysterical, he was practically crying. "Oh the irony!" He said as he wiped his eyes. "And you say my driving is bad."

"That's because it's true," I defended.

"Okay, okay. Turn here," he pointed at a medium sized house approximately in the middle of the street. Pulling into the driveway, I pulled the key out of the ignition and tossed the keys to Augustus. We stared at each other for a minute, still grinning. Eventually Augustus cleared his throat. "Shall we go inside?"

His house was nothing like mine. I kept looking for similarities to make small talk, something like 'oh my mom has that vase too!' but it turns out that wasn't necessary. "I'm home!" Augustus called. Somewhere at the back of the house a voice that I assume is one of his parents calls back, "In the kitchen Gus!" Augustus takes my hand and leads me through the house, passing through halls lined with framed quotes. I stop at one, and stare at it for a while. Augustus doubles back from down the hall and sees me looking at it. "My folks call them Encouragements. Ridiculous, I know."

"I think they're lovely." The quote: _To get the rainbow, you have to deal with the rain. _It is a beautiful thought.

Augustus' parents were not like most parents. They were very okay with their son bringing home a girl from school, and watching a movie with her. They were not okay, however with the two of us watching the movie in the basement. "You will watch the movie in the living room or not at all," his dad said, not unkindly. So we resigned ourselves to the couch in the living room, watching V for Vendetta. Throughout the whole movie, I casually left my hand sitting in the center of the couch, between Augustus and I, so if he wanted to hold it he could. It was a total middle school move and I'm not proud of it, but what's a girl to do?

After the movie, we sat talking about things that didn't really matter for I'm not sure how long. "Favorite color?" Augustus asked.

"What is this, 20 questions? Green."

"Yes, it is. Your turn."

"Alright. What school did you go to before Columbus High?"

"I didn't. I was home schooled."

"Really? That is so cool."

"Cool is not a word I would use to describe hanging out with my parents all day," Augustus said nonchalantly as his mom walked by with the laundry. She swatted him on the back of the head and he called after her, "Love you Mom!" I was stifling my giggles, but Augustus still playfully glared at me. "So what about you? Any interesting facts? Weird fetishes?" Augustus questioned.

"I am quite boring actually, nothing remotely interesting about me." Augustus stared at me for a moment before replying.

"I reject that out of hand."

"I go to school, I come home, I eat dinner I watch ANTM and then I re-read my favorite book. It's a repetitive cycle, day after day." Augustus was astonished.

"You never differ from your schedule?"

"Well occasionally on weekends I go to my friend Kaitlin's house, but yeah basically."

"Well we have some work to do with you, don't we?" Augustus's smirk was back and better than ever. "Would you like to come to a party on Saturday? It's a long weekend, so if you get drunk your parents can't care." I laughed until I realized he was being serious. "A party?"

"Yeah, you ever been to one?"

"In like, seventh grade."

"Oh well, it'll just be a couple people, so wear something you're comfortable in."

"Okay."

"Okay." I shook my head at him and glanced at the clock. "Holy shit! I have to get going,"

"Do you want me to drive you home?"

"That'd be great thanks."

It was an awkward drive, as was to be expected. Between his driving and the silence stretching the distance between the two of us, it was hard to strike up friendly banter. Pulling up in front of my house, we turned to look at each other. We were both smiling like idiots, and it took me thirty seconds to pull myself together. Clearing my throat, I pushed the passenger door open. "I should go."

"And re-read your book again?"

"Crazy fetishes, am I right?"

"Here," Augustus says, suddenly digging through his glove compartment. "Ah hah!" dusting off the cover of the book he retrieved, he hands it to me. "Try it. It's actually really good."

"The Price of Dawn?"

"First in the series. Do you mind if I check something in it real quick?" I pass the book back to him and look over my shoulder to my house. The lights are on in the living room. Translation: my parents are waiting to interrogate me.

I felt something nudge my arm and turned back around, taking the book from Augustus. "And in return, you will read An Imperial Affliction, the book that I have read so many times I could relay it to you right now."

"Does it have stormtroopers? Zombies? War?"

"No stormtroopers, no zombies, ad no war."

"Alright. I will read this book with a boring title and no stormtroopers or zombies."

"And I'll see you tomorrow," I said, already walking up the path to my house. Augustus waved from his car before taking off down the street, almost taking down a couple trashcans on the way. I sighed happily before stepping up to the door. My hand on the knob, I sucked in a breath. Time to face the parents.


End file.
